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Bomber linked to extremists
29/09/2008 11:35 - (SA)
Damascus - A weekend bombing which left 17 people dead in the Syrian capital was a suicide attack by a "terrorist" with links to an Islamist extremist group, the official news agency Sana said on Monday.
"A preliminary inquiry has shown that the car which exploded on Saturday came across a border post from a neighbouring Arab country and that the terrorist driving it blew himself up with the vehicle," the agency said.
It said the bomber had links to a "Takfiri" group, referring to Islamist extremists, adding that Syria had arrested a number of its members in the past. The agency gave no further details.
A car packed with 200kg of explosives blew up near a security checkpoint on a road to Damascus airport in what Interior Minister General Bassam Abdel Majid called "a terrorist act".
It was the deadliest attack in two decades in Syria, where security is run with an iron fist. The minister said all casualties were civilians.
Sana said the vehicle entered Syria on Friday and that investigators were in the process of determining the identity of the bomber through DNA tests.
The bombing, a rare incident in Syria, came amid a flurry of diplomatic activity involving Damascus.
It has launched indirect peace talks with archfoe Israel after an eight-year freeze, moved to establish diplomatic ties with Lebanon and opened the door to improved relations with the West.
Syria has borders with Arab neighbours Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, as well as Turkey and Israel.
In February, a top commander with the Lebanese Shi'ite militia Hezbollah, who was on Israeli and US most wanted lists for a string of attacks in the 1980s and 1990s, was killed in a Damascus car bombing.
In August, Syria confirmed the assassination of army general Mohammed Sleiman, described in Arab media as the regime's liaison with Hezbollah.
- AFP
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